The experience of being introverted is widely misunderstood. I don’t mean to imply that, as individual people, introverts are misunderstood. What I mean is that most people don’t understand what defines anÂ introvert versus an extrovert. Introverts aren’tÂ necessarily anti-social, shy, nerdy or lacking good communication or interpersonal skills. No, no, no. Not at all. I’ve met lots of extroverts with poor communication skills and know some introverts (myself included) who can be the life and soul of the party.

I am not going in to too much detail about the theories of why some people are introverted and others are extroverted, or the Jungian origins of these concepts. But this article in Fast Company is an excellent one to read on the topic if you are interestedÂ or, this one in the Atlantic, actually written by a self proclaimed introvert.

Most definitions emphasize some common themes, all of which describe me to a tee:

They tend to have small groups of very close friends rather than large networks of acquaintances

All of that said, I LOVE parties, dancing, meeting new people, big events, night clubs and music festivals. However, after about 5 or 6Â hours of any one of the above I am D.O.N.E. Don’t talk to me, don’t call me and definitely don’t turn up unannounced at my house (unless you desperately need the loo and plan to leave immediately afterwards). It is not uncommon for me toÂ do a disappearing act from a party. When my social energy runs out, there are no reserves.

‘So what has all this got to do with coffee?’ I hear you say. Well, another thing I find particularly hard to deal with as an introvert is being “talked at”. And I’ve noticed that people who love to talk at you, talk at you even more after a couple of cups of coffee. It seems they just can’t stop themselves.

I started to notice this when I worked at Brock Uni. One of the students I worked with used to burn the candle at both ends quite frequently. He’d come in sullen and hung over. However,Â afterÂ a Red Bull for breakfast, an extra large Starbucks midÂ morning, a Coke at lunch and another bucketful of coffee around 3pm,Â he perked right up. By 4pm his ability to talk became the equivalent, to me, of Chinese Water Torture. After 45 minutes of listening to hisÂ verbal diarrhea I would have done anythingÂ to have him stop. ANYTHING.

That is an extreme example. However there are many other occasions this has happened. ThereÂ I have stood, not able to get a word in edgewise, while the over-caffeinated person in front ofÂ me conducted a monologue in my direction. My body language turning in on itself,Â I become incapable of deliveringÂ the placatory nods and smiles that indicate polite interest. Every cellÂ is screaming STOP TALKING PLEASE!

I can’t be the only person who experiences this. Although I read somewhere that only 25% of the US populations have predominantly introverted personalities (like most traits, introversion and extroversion exist on a continuum). So maybe I am in the minority. I guess that if you are naturally extroverted you would find it difficult to conceive the experience of an introvert. Although I have no problems imagining what an extrovert might feel like, and have, in the past, wished to be that way.

So for the benefit of those extroverts out there, I stole the following from theÂ Fast Company article. It is handy guide to caring for your Introvert. It doesn’t includeÂ “Don’t drink too much coffee”, but in my opinion, it should.

So, I’ve been learningÂ as much as I can about launching a ‘software as a service’ business.Â Since I also have a day job,Â I am doing thisÂ by listening to podcasts and audio books (see the page Stuff I Like for a list). Am I an expert?? Er, NOT YET!Â The amount to learnÂ seems overwhelming. Mail Chimp, Google Analytics, Word Press, SEO, Libsyn. And so the list goes on….

However, a side benefit has been a reminder about something that I fundamentally know to be true, but which I often forget. The powers of a growth mindset. In other words, brains and talent are a good starting point, but dedicationÂ andÂ hard work will lead to accomplishment.

AÂ fixed mindset is the opposite to a growth mindset. That is theÂ mindset of people who say things like “I am just no good at xxxx”, or “Oh, I could never do that”. Growth mindsetÂ is also the enemy of “all or nothing” thinking. ThisÂ is when you sayÂ “Either I am really good at xxxx, or else I am a failure at it”. As a teenager, I was a master at this line of thought.

The “non-runner” who trains for a marathon is a great example of someone who has a growth mindset. Â Or the person with no formal education who decides, midlife, to go back to school to getÂ a post secondary qualification.

In my own life, it is what allowed me to goÂ from a 30 year old smoker who couldn’t jog 1 mile, to a mountain biker who podiumedÂ in a 24 hour, solo mountain bike race at 44.

Anything is possible. That is,Â ifÂ you want it badly enough and are prepared toÂ work for it. You need to have a healthy ego, because the chances are you’ll fail along the way. Oh, and a great sense of humour. Â Because, let’s face it, life is a shit show.

Also, you’ll notice that 15 years passed between my first, dreadful, running experience and the longest MTB ride of my life. Progress is about chipping away, little by little, at a goal. I learned to recognize small wins and forgiveÂ myself when you I didn’t meet myÂ own (arbitrary) expectations. Out of pure frustration I have thrownÂ my bike in to the bush more times than I care to remember. This didn’t do me (or my bike) much good! Forgive yourself but don’t give up. It’s easier and less damaging to personal property than throwing things.

I’d also suggest that you stay away from the FMP (fixed mindset people). You know, thoseÂ negative nellies, who constantly wang on about what they can’t do, or worse, tell you what you can’t do. Enough said.

I’ve heard others describe this mind set as “believing in the process”.Â I have adopted this as a personal mantra for when things get a bit tough.

Recently I watched a greatÂ Ted Talk by Carol Dweck. She describes a school in the US that added the grade “not yet” to their marking process. If a child doesn’t pass a subject, they receive a “not yet” grade instead of a failing one.

In this way the message they gave to kids was that, although they hadn’t reached the required standard yet, it wasn’t a permanent situation. The door remained open for them to try a different approach, workÂ harder and, with support, get to where they needed to be. Contrast this with the prevailing trend to giveÂ everyone a congratulatory slap on the backÂ and a gold star, regardless of performance*.

One of the things I’ve noticed with a growth mindset is that, sometimes, I apply it to certain aspects of my life, but then not others. This happens with other people too. I know individuals who have achieved remarkable success in their careers, yet shy away from fulfilling their burning ambitions out of a fear of failure.

For me, I have always wanted to start my own online business. I am perfectly placed to do so. My husband is a top notch software developer, I have business experience, a wonderful network of smart people, and a relatively flexible life (read: no kids). But I haven’t done it until now because I didn’t know the first thing about it. I would probably still be thinking aboutÂ it unless a good friend had asked me to join her. Once she did, and we took the first step, IÂ wasÂ hooked.

Who knows where this latest venture will take us. We haven’t bet the farm (yet!), we are learning as we go along, and our progress is slow. However, even if this doesn’t turn in to a viable profit making endeavour, I will benefit in other ways. I always do. I’ll prove I can do it, and so gain self confidence. I’ll learn something new. I’ll meet new people and I’ll have a great story to tell.

So what is your burning ambition? What can you do to take small steps to move towards it? If I can, believe me, you can.

*Full disclosure here -Â I don’t have kids so this comment is based onÂ my own experienceÂ working with undergraduate students for 7Â years.Â Those kids whose parents have used theÂ “everything you do is awesome” approach toÂ parenting have fragile egos and don’t know how to deal withÂ criticism.

I have been stewingÂ about the Brexit vote all weekend. However, I’ve had the chance toÂ discuss itÂ with friends, including those who are far betterÂ politically informed than I.

Dave, who can always be relied upon to provide a well informedÂ counter-argument, gave me an interesting alternative to consider. Following on from our discussion he sent me thisÂ article from The Intercept.

The articleÂ blames the vote onÂ arrogant and elitist institutions (including the media). It argues that these institutions have systematically ignored the plight of people who are suffering from a decline in their standard of living. All the whileÂ the wealth gap between them and the “elite” gets wider. These people haveÂ limited alternativeÂ methods to enactÂ change, and the Brexit vote was an opportunity to hit back. Regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not.

Have a read and keep an open mind.

Dave has long since told me I am an elitist. A claim I have always roundly dismissed. But maybe he is right. MaybeÂ that is why the vote upset me so much; because I identify with the oppressors and not the oppressed.

Yes, you read that right, Goat School. It’s a thing, and Rob and I were there about four weeks ago.

The King and Queen of Goat School, Janice and Ken Spaulding, have lived off the income from their goat farm in rural Maine for about 25 years. In 2004 they started organising a three day workshop to impart their considerable experience and knowledge on rearing goats. What Ken and Janice don’t know about keeping goats is not worth the knowing. On the weekend Rob and I went, there were 18 attendees. They’ve had up to 100 people at a time in the past. In years gone by they have even taken Goat School on the road to other locations across North America.

Now, if I had a dollar for every time someone raised a doubtful eyebrow when I mentioned Goat School, I could probably have bought my own goat by now. I had even let these people get to me. The first day I worriedÂ whether the experience would justify the time off work and the ten hour drive. The doubters could not have been more wrong.

I LOVED IT. The three days went too quickly. I was fascinated and engaged the whole time. I felt like I had found my tribe. Most of the attendees were like Rob and I, curious about what goat keeping entailed. Many were either planning for, or in the early stages of, a lifestyle change. They wanted to back away from the world of working for others, and were trying to define what that would look like for them.

We learned about the 3 different types of goats (dairy, meat and fibre) and how to care for each type. We learned about milking, breeding, birthing, shots, food, shearing, castration (gulp), tattooing, licensing, hoof trimming and the importance of a vet that knows about small ruminants. We also learned about “freezer camp” – I’ll leave that one to your imagination. The unsentimental delivery of all this info helped me process some of the aspects of goat farming that I was a bit stuck on (freezer camp being one of them).

All this info was sprinkled with real life stories from Ken and Janice’s own experiences. Their banter reminded me of a comedy double act and our entire group spent most of the weekend laughing. In fact, at the end I really did feel like I’d joined a little community. Both, Janice and Ken said that they hadn’t had so much fun delivering goat school in years. You could tell they enjoyed it as much as we did. On the final day we learned about how to make different kinds of cheese out of goat milk, and also how to make soap. Rob was so excited about making our own cheese, I thought he was going to buy a goat right there and then!

So, what’s next? Well we can’t keep goats in our garden. And, as much as the place in EVL would be absolutely perfect, weÂ don’t plan to live in the US. So we just have to figure out what that looks like for us. I expect that this planning is going to take a few years. It will be a journey for sure. However, I thought that if I started blogging about it, if anyone is reading it they could follow this journey with us.

You may already have heard enough about Brexit to last you a life time. If so, skip this uncharacteristically long one from me. However, quite a few people have asked my opinion. So I decided I wanted to figure out what my opinion actually was. The way I do that is to write about things, so here goes. I wrote this about 5 days after the vote but have only just had the time to post it now.

I’m Going Under Cover

I think I am going to change my accent. 15 years of living in Canada has already given it a funny lilt. Sometimes I am mistaken for an Auzzie, or a South African. In light of the Brexit vote this isnâ€™t such a bad thing. Moving forward I will play along because, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed to call myself a Brit.

I was 23 when Britain joined the EU. However it was many years before that when I started traveling through Europe with my family. We’d drive south to Dover, cross the channel on a ferry, and then down through France and in to Spain. Armed only with the Relais Routiers weâ€™d stop at little B&Bâ€™s, eat local food and hang out at the beach. These are some of the fondest memories from my childhood and have had a huge influence on the person I am today.

These early experiences of â€œforeignnessâ€ (France and Spain are very different today than when I was 7), gave me a curiosity about other cultures. I spent years travelling and working in different countries before settling in Canada. Nonetheless, moving to live and work in Canada was a huge cultural eye opener for me. Canada is truly a multi- cultural country. I interact with a far greater variety of cultures now than at any point in my previous, nomadic, life.

How did I get it so wrong?

Even though Iâ€™ve lived in Canada for about 15 years, I stay in constant contact with my immediate family in the UK. But, when the EU referendum in the UK was announced, I barely took any notice. In my mind, who would vote for something so completely regressive? How could anyone possibly understand what leaving would mean? Why (unless you are a white supremacist) would you agree to do anything the UKIP party thought was a good idea? Nigel Farrage is a national joke.

Shows you what I know. Now I am shaking my head in disbelief and trying to figure out what possible reason more than 50% of an entire nation would vote this way. And this is what Iâ€™ve found.

The question about the payment thing

According to the Leave campaigners, being an EU member was costing the UK, GBP 350 million a week. British funds that could otherwise be much better spent on funding the National Health Service. That was a hotly disputed number even before the vote. The number ($50 million a day) was plastered all over the â€œbattle busâ€ that Boris Johnson used during the Brexit campaign. Odd now that the Leave campaigners are distancing themselves from that claim. In fact, Nigel Farrage of UKIP is quite certain that he never said this money would go to the NHS. A quick look at the Brexit campaignâ€™s website now will show you that this is a bit of a trend for the Brexit side. You will in fact see that none of the pre-campaign statements/promises are there anymore. Just a lovely note saying â€œThank Youâ€. Accountability, anyone?

The Syrian Refugees are Coming!

Another cornerstone of the Brexit campaign was linked to Turkeyâ€™s application to be a member of the EU. The Leave side warned of the terrible dangers this held because of all the Syrian refugees Turkey was harbouring. Refugees who had fled to Turkey in fear for their lives. The story went like this:

Turkey becomes a member of the EU

EU member countries open their borders to Turkey

Syrian refugees FLOOD the EU from Turkey and end up in the UK

Syrian refugees then drain the UK economy and steal British peopleâ€™s jobs

The UK bursts in to flames and sinks in to the Irish sea.

OK, so I made the last bit up. Fact is, Turkey has been trying to get in to the EU since 1972. They have still only managed to meet 1 of the 25 requirements to do so. One politician I was listening to estimated the process would take until 2030. Hardly an immediate threat is it?

Britain for the British

The argument for the Leave side I found most embarrassing was the â€œBritain for the Britishâ€ thing. Meaning, â€˜we donâ€™t want any of those non-British people coming in, stealing our jobs and diluting our cultureâ€™. Letâ€™s suspend belief for a moment. Let’s say this argument’s appeal has nothing to do with xenophobia, misplaced nationalism or a fear of otherness. I would then admit that, if I were chronically unemployed, I would be angry to be told that immigrants were landing jobs because they were prepared to work for less money. I think that may be oversimplifying the argument, but you get my point.

However, I donâ€™t think that leaving the EU is a solution to that problem. First of all it is a minimum wage issue. I donâ€™t remember reading either side saying minimum wage legislation would be tabled as a result of the vote. I also can’t find (though it may exist) anything to says the EU prevented the UK from passing minimum wage legislation.

Immigration, it’s a thing, people!

The second thing people conveniently overlook is that no-one could or should, actually stop immigration. For our current version of Capitalism to work, countriesâ€™ economies need to grow. So in a country where birth rates are not keeping up with the number of people dying off, you NEED immigration. All the Syrians Germany “allowed in” are a drop in the bucket compared to their rapidly declining population. The UK is no different.

Along the same lines, there is a hard fact which seems to have escaped a lot of peopleâ€™s attention. That is we were all bloody immigrants at one time or another!! A large part of my family ancestry is Irish. Were those immigrants (starving, poverty stricken and poorly educated) any more or less worthy of a new start than those seeking a new life in the UK now? If everyone that was â€œnot from hereâ€ left, society would grind to a halt.

What Now?

So, letâ€™s say all the above points were actually valid, what has the Brexit vote done for us so far? Well, letâ€™s think.

First off, if free trade ends, I wonder how much all that administration is going to cost to harden borders. How much time will it take to renegotiate all these free trade agreements, individually, with each nation? Then add the possibility of Ireland and Scotland voting to become independent from the UK. Any English Government is going to be embroiled in all of that business for the near future. I wonder if the cost will be more than the money we have been paying to the EU? What does it mean for the implementation of other, important, social and economic legislation?

UK versus the world

Then there’s the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). This EU – US trade agreement, which has taken years to negotiate will no longer apply to the UK. An EU free UK will have to negotiate its own arrangements with the US and Canada. Way to go UK, you are now on your own!

There is so much uncertainty around the Brexit decision that the financial markets experienced their biggest drop ever. All the major rating agencies have taken away the UKâ€™s former â€œtriple Aâ€ credit rating, and the GBP has even fallen against the Canadian dollar â€“ 30 cents in 5 days â€“ a 15% drop.

Finally I think the free movement of people, ideas, and commerce was what made the UK an amazing place to be. I have always been proud to say that the UK was part of Europe, in my mind that was akin to saying â€œI am a citizen of the worldâ€. Maybe that wonâ€™t change, but something about the protectionist and nationalistic undercurrent to the Brexit campaign makes me think that this wonâ€™t be the prevailing sentiment.

Babies and Bath Water

I get that there is this bizarre nostalgia for â€œwhat Britain used to beâ€, but it is simply that, nostalgia. The world has changed, and the UK has had to change along with it, as a part of the EU or not.

The dissatisfaction with the social and economic situation in the UK will not be solved by roundly blaming our relationship with our largest trading partner. It certainly wonâ€™t be helped by feeding racist ideology and a fear of foreigners, which I sense was driving much of the vote.

Now in the aftermath of the vote, there is so much hyperbole that it is difficult to sort through for the common sense. So many of the people who voted to leave are now standing up and saying they didnâ€™t know what they were voting for. Seems to me there was some irresponsible campaigning by the Brexit side and I feel as though the UK threw out the baby with the bath water when it voted.

After a long day on no sleep (dodgy oyster, don’t ask) I sat down to look at the news. Then BAAAAM! I discover that a US release date for the Absolutely Fabulous Movie has been set for July. Hurrah!!!

Absolutely Fabulous (or”Ab Fab”) represents a slice of 90’s UK culture that I hold dear. It reminds me of my early twenties. As with the sitcom, the movie is written by Jennifer Saunders of French and Saunders and Comic Strip fame. Ab Fab’s main characters are Eddy Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy Stone, her alcoholic, pill popping, side kick, (Joanna Lumley). Each show poked fun at their outrageous, booze fueled, lifestyle and slavish dedication to fashion.

Even 24 years ago Eddy and Patsy were, ahem, “past their prime”. Eddy’s plain but sensible daughter and potty mother constantly frustrated Patsy and Eddy’s champagne soaked capers. The show’s other star is Eddy’s hilarious personal assistant, Bubbles. Played by Jane Horrocks. I still laugh when I think of her impression of a fax machine in an early episode. If you’ve never seen the show, think of a British version of Sex in the City (tough, I know). Then imagine the characters trying to behave the way they did in the first series but now they are 20 years older, drink a lot more, and are considerably funnier. Got it? Well then, you are sort of half way there.

Ab Fab has this mix of slapstick and funny, fast-paced dialogue. I loved watching two older women, dressed like 17 year olds, behaving really badly. It wasn’t just me who found them appealing. An entire generation of TV watchers loved the show. Now, 24 years later, they seemed to have pulled it off again.

The Absolutely Fabulous movie is said to have more than 60 star cameos including Stella McCartney, Kate Moss, Joan Collins, Jerry Hall and Jeremy Paxman. Even better (in my opinion), it features 90 drag queens!! Based on the premise that Eddy and Joanna accidentally push Kate Moss off a balcony into the Thames at a party. To escape the paparazzi, they run, penniless, to the South of France.

The first is that he has exactly captured the behaviour of our youngest dog, Sprocket who is either in repose or charging around like a thing possessed.

The second reason is because it introduced me to a new swear word. Even as I type “holy assbutts”, I am smiling.

Yes, I LOVE swear words. I can’t explain it. My Mum, or maybe a teacher, once told me that swearing showed a poor command of the English language and a lack of imagination. In other words, if you have to insert “f**k” or “s**t” in to your sentence it’s because you don’t know enough adjectives. That may well be true. But swearing is so much fun!!! I actually like learning new words, period, and then trying to fit them in to a sentence without sounding like a dork, and I don’t often swear in anger, more just because the words themselves make me laugh.

You’ll notice in a blog post below I start it with “holy shit balls”. That is also a fairly new one to my collection. I had wanted to insert a GIF that showed Tina Fey using it, but WordPress has a thing against GIFs and I couldn’t work out how to get around it.

Other recent favourites from a BuzzFeed article include “Fucktrumpet” and “Assbadger”. They make absolutely no sense, but that is part of their awesomeness.

Apparently the British are particularly good at swearing, so maybe that is where my fascination for the crude comes from. I tried to find swear words that Shakespeare used and came across this wonderful blog post by Marginalia, whose site I will be visiting again. She is obviously a scholar of literature (and a fan of profane language) and points out that while Shakespeare didn’t actually use directly foul language (there were all kind of Christian restrictions in those days about what you could and could not say on stage), he was really good at making rude references in a more subtle way. I won’t repeat the examples Marginalia provides, because you can read them for yourself in her post.

So there you have it.

Please do feel free to share your fave swear words with me, the more unusual, the better!

Apart from the usual business (approving minutes, electing Board members etc.) this meeting is also the time when employee service awards are given out.

People received awards for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 35 years of service. 35 years!!!! The lady who received her 35 year award started work as a student and has never left. She has fulfilled different roles and responsibilities, and the organisation has grown over time, but essentially she grew up with our organisation. She isn’t the only story like this. In some cases, this is the only work environment people have experienced.

This, to me, is amazing. The only thing I have done consistently for more than 10 years (other than the usual, you know, breathing and stuff) is to be married.

I’ve never stayed at a job that long, I’ve never lived in a house (or even one city) that long, heck, I only need one hand to count the number of friends I see regularly who I’ve known that long!

What is wrong with me???

This is not the first time I’ve wondered about this. Before I left my last job I agonized for weeks over whether it was the right thing to do after 4 years. And maybe it wasn’t. BUT I was working crazy hours, was stressed and miserable and no longer really believed that the work I was doing to support the institution was consistent with my values. I am sure though that I can’t be the only person who has faced those circumstances, and many people, I am sure, would hang in there for much longer than I, in the hopes things would change.

So I decided to do a bit of research and come up with a set of good reasons why someone should stay in their job for years and years, and reasons that would justify my flaky employment history. I expected to come out of this feeling like I was an odd ball, after all, I come from a family of loyal time-served employees (my Dad worked for the same company for more than 30 years and my sister has only ever worked for two companies over the course of her professional life). In fact I found the things I read validated my own behaviour.

The positive arguments for longevity seem to me to be good for the employer and not necessarily for the employee (unless they are somewhere that offers steady increases in responsibility and this is reflected in their salary). Employers who value longevity see the advantages of low turnover (hiring and training are expensive and time consuming) and a more “stable” culture. I put “stable” in quotation marks deliberately. In some cases I honestly think “stable” can become “stagnant” and if there are too many people with endless years of service, change gets harder and harder to implement.

What I was surprised to discover was that the definition of “longevity” is not at all “long” and that attitudes that once might have valued years and years of service, have changed. Longevity, in many articles I read, refers to over 2 years of service. Currently a North American worker stays an average 4.6 years at each job before moving on. In fact a new term for “job hopping” has been developed to name the under 25 year old tendency to move jobs every couple of years. It is now known as “Professional Pivoting”.

Another article I read said that you MUST change jobs every 3-5 years in order to learn and grow and move up in your career. Apparently the concept of loyalty is demonstrated through loyalty to an idea, a project or a group of people, and not by showing up day after day to do the same thing for the same company. I concur with this sentiment (I am, of course, a bit biased). At both the job I am in now, and the one I was in before, I bust my ass to make changes and leave the organization in a better place then when I joined. The reality of both organizations when I joined was that I replaced very long term employees (almost 20 years in both cases). Because of this there had been 20 years of some things being done amazingly well and some things were not done well at all. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and, over 20 years these become ingrained in to culture and practice, this is not necessarily always for the best. There again, I am taking the organisation’s perspective.

From the employee’s perspective, I completely understand that stability and familiarity are important to people at certain points in their lives. I get that if you are bringing up small children, or going through some personal crisis in your own life, then change in other aspects of your life is not welcome. However these things (one would hope) don’t last forever.

However, I also think that staying too long in one place makes you afraid of taking risks, moving on, becoming adaptable to new circumstances and working styles, and possibly learning new skills. One of the themes that has come up in conversations with individuals who have worked for very long periods of time at the same place, is that they don’t know what else they would do. Surely the point of dedicating all that time and hard work to an organization should allow, at the very least, for you to build a skill set that you could leverage if you ever wanted to change direction? Or, that if an individual feels they have stagnated, isn’t it their responsibility to gain new knowledge and skills for themselves?

I think this explains my “Professional Pivoting”. To use a cliche, I give 110% wherever I work, and I expect, as well as a paycheck, to be given the opportunity to take on new things and continuously learn. However if I hit a wall and I cannot see a way to grow (and by that I mean is skills not necessarily in dollars), and I’m getting no support, then it is time to move on with no regrets.

This is apparently a very Gen X/ Gen Y/Millennial way of looking at the world. They will be loyal to an organization, however they expect that the organization demonstrates some loyalty to them in the form of providing opportunities to learn and grow. As a ‘Gen X’r’ myself, this doesn’t make me all that different to my peers. Just different to a lot of the people I work with! But then again that’s probably why I was hired. So maybe I should just stop fretting and get on with the job at hand.

Rob, myself and the three tiny terrors were bit pooped today after mountain biking in Holiday Valley on Saturday and Sunday. At one point last night, I had to poke Sprocket to check he was still alive. So the prospect of more climbing (which is pretty much a given when mountain biking in EVL) wasn’t that appealing and instead we opted to ride Rock City.

Rock City, part of a NY state forest, is gorgeous. Riding the trails there feels like you’ve gone back in time to when the dinosaurs roamed. Huge rocks covered in moss are everywhere and the trees are large and old, with enormous roots. It’s a fun place to ride when it is dry, although for those who are nervous of rocks and roots, there might be a bit of walking involved. That said, there are worse places to hike a bike.

Looking at WNYMBA‘s review of the trail, it gets five stars and I understand why. I think their review is of a much smaller section than the one I call “Rock City” as they say it is 1 mile long and I clocked about 6km from the entrance to the end where we joined the Tournado ByPass loop and rode out on to the South Pale Ale Trail to the road, making about a 9km loop in total. There isn’t a lot of elevation and so if you feel like working on your technical skills without coughing up a lung, this is a great place to do it. You may not ride all the sections, but the sense of achievement for getting through a rock garden that you’ve not managed before is unmistakable.

I’ve included the MTB Projects map of the EVL area below so you can get a sense of where it is if you’re interested in riding there. Or you could go to the MTB Project site and search for Ellicottville for more information.

Holy s**t balls – it’s been five years since I wrote a blog post! Where does the time go?

I’ve been writing a blog for a business venture that I am working on with a friend and enjoying it so much that I thought it was time to start my personal blog again. The business blog (check it out at blog.foodgrads.com) is fun but we are writing for an audience who is interested in getting a job in the food industry, so not much scope for my ramblings on other topics. I am also enjoying learning more about WordPress and I figured this was a good place to play in the WordPress sandbox without any consequences, since I doubt anyone is reading this at the moment!!

I’m not going to do a “catch up” type post since I think it will be really boring, but I may post a few things that relate to stuff that happened in the recent past since so much is going on at the moment. You can expect the usual mix of biking, dogs, and the odd rant. I’ve taken up quilting and sewing since completing my MBA, have this nascent online business going and have developed a bit of an obsession with becoming a goat herd. More about that in another post.

It’s good to be back, and I am making a commitment to myself and anyone else who is interested to post twice a week, even if it’s a few lines. The discipline will be good for me.